Who operates the Visund field?

Visund is operated by Equinor Energy AS, in partnership with Petoro AS, ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS, Repsol Norge AS.

How much does Visund produce?

86,950 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 2.0% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 11 of 94 producing fields.

When did Visund start producing?

First production was reported in 1999, 13 years after discovery well 34/8-1 proved the field in 1986.

What is the Norwegian Continental Shelf?

The Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) is the seabed area where Norway holds sovereign rights over petroleum resources, covering the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea and the Barents Sea. It holds roughly 90 producing fields, and its output is the largest single source of Norway's export income.

What does NCS Live show?

Every in-service surface installation and subsea structure on the shelf, the offshore pipeline network, field outlines and seabed relief, with live vessel traffic and offshore helicopter flights on top of them. Optional layers add seismic survey activity, cold-water coral, wind and wave forecasts, and a counter for the value each field is producing today.

Where does the data come from?

Infrastructure, fields and production come from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sokkeldirektoratet) FactPages under the NLOD licence. Vessel positions are AIS from BarentsWatch and Kystverket. Helicopter movements are derived from Avinor flight data. Coral observations come from the Institute of Marine Research and MAREANO, and export prices from Statistics Norway (SSB).

Is the vessel traffic real time?

Yes. Tankers and offshore support vessels are drawn from live AIS positions and refreshed continuously, with speed, course and self-reported destination. Helicopter positions are dead-reckoned estimates between known departures and arrivals, not surveillance.

Are the pipeline flows measured?

No. Pipeline thickness and the travelling flow animation are estimates, derived by accumulating monthly field production through the pipeline network. They are not metered throughput, and thickness is not pipe diameter.

Can I see how the shelf was built out?

Yes. The time machine replays the shelf from 1971, the year Ekofisk started producing, to today. Installations and pipelines appear in the year they entered service, with total production and the number of producing fields for each year.

Is NCS Live free to use?

Yes, free and with no account. It is a public visualisation of open data, built and designed by Smpl and Melvær&Co in Norway.

Visund field

Visund is producing 86,950 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 2.0% of everything the Norwegian Continental Shelf produced in May 2026, ranking 11 of the 94 fields in production.

Production

86,950 boe/d

Share of NCS

2.0%

Operator

Equinor Energy AS

First oil

1999

What it produces

In May 2026 the field delivered 86,950 barrels of oil equivalent a day, classified by the directorate as oil/gas — almost entirely gas. Output has moved up 8.1% over the past twelve months, and the directorate's profile for the field is mature. The field's best year was 2021, averaging 122,432 boe/d — today it runs at 71% of that.

Since 1999, Visund has produced roughly 643 million barrels of oil equivalent in total. The directorate's estimate of recoverable resources is 820 million boe, of which about 78% has now been recovered; 159 million boe remained as of 31.12.2025.

Timeline

1986
Proven by exploration well 34/8-1
1999
First production reported
1999
Visund (semisub steel) enters service
2021
Best year to date — 122,432 boe/d

Production by year, 1999–2026

OilGasNGL/condensateboe/d

Full table, year by year

Year	Oil	Gas	NGL	Total boe/d
1999	10,825	0	0	10,825
2000	38,719	0	0	38,719
2001	43,708	0	0	43,708
2002	42,376	0	0	42,376
2003	34,827	0	0	34,827
2004	32,015	0	0	32,015
2005	19,235	5,954	738	25,927
2006	20,852	17,905	2,181	40,938
2007	38,788	25,977	2,294	67,059
2008	29,634	13,627	1,524	44,784
2009	26,941	19,601	2,291	48,833
2010	24,181	19,230	1,845	45,256
2011	11,527	9,600	667	21,793
2012	12,357	7,837	729	20,922
2013	17,968	11,270	1,270	30,508
2014	29,514	9,915	1,214	40,644
2015	37,329	22,898	2,364	62,592
2016	43,692	41,102	5,237	90,031
2017	33,591	59,973	7,361	100,924
2018	32,214	75,257	8,376	115,847
2019	25,995	84,735	9,090	119,821
2020	18,141	73,505	8,784	100,431
2021	17,557	94,755	10,121	122,432
2022	13,260	99,302	8,378	120,940
2023	9,413	95,464	9,281	114,158
2024	8,138	71,127	6,248	85,513
2025	7,666	87,841	5,059	100,567
2026	5,819	78,495	3,981	88,295

Average daily rates per calendar year, from Sokkeldirektoratet's monthly production figures. The final year is the average through May 2026.

Discovery and drilling

The field was proven by exploration well 34/8-1 in 1986. The directorate's wellbore register lists 102 wellbores on Visund: 18 exploration and 82 development, plus 2 others. The deepest reaches 9,082 metres measured depth. Water depth at the field's installations is 335 to 381 metres.

How it reaches market

Visund's production leaves the field by pipeline:

20" Gas Visund, Visund Tgas → Visund T

Installations on Visund

VisundSemisub Steel1999

The first of them entered service in 1999. The field also has 24 subsea structures — wellheads and templates on the seabed — which are drawn individually on the map.

Licence partners

Equinor Energy AS53.20%
Petoro AS30.00%
ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS9.10%
Repsol Norge AS7.70%

The field sits in block 34/8, under production licence PL 120.

Questions people ask

Who operates the Visund field?: Visund is operated by Equinor Energy AS, in partnership with Petoro AS, ConocoPhillips Skandinavia AS, Repsol Norge AS.
How much does Visund produce?: 86,950 barrels of oil equivalent per day as of May 2026 — 2.0% of Norwegian Continental Shelf output, ranking 11 of 94 producing fields.
When did Visund start producing?: First production was reported in 1999, 13 years after discovery well 34/8-1 proved the field in 1986.

See it live

Visund is drawn on the NCS Live map with its outline, its pipelines and the vessels working it in real time — and på norsk. The directorate's own record is on the SODIR FactPages.

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